{"id":293,"date":"2008-07-22T13:10:49","date_gmt":"2008-07-22T20:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2008-07-22T13:13:58","modified_gmt":"2008-07-22T20:13:58","slug":"what-scientists-are-we-talking-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/07\/22\/what-scientists-are-we-talking-about\/","title":{"rendered":"What scientists are we talking about?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"research\" by <\/em><\/span>SqueakyMarmot<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\nObligatory Reading of the Day: Opening up Scientific Culture [A Blog Around The Clock]<\/a>:
\n[Via ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Why are so many scientists reluctant to make full use of Web 2.0 applications, social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and commenting capabilities on some online journals?<\/p>\n

Michael Nielsen wrote a very thoughtful essay<\/a> exploring this question which I hope you read carefully and post comments.<\/p>\n

Michael is really talking about two things – one is pre-publication process, i.e., how to get scientists to find each other and collaborate by using the Web, and the other is the post-publication process, i.e., how to get scientists to make their thoughts and discussions about published works more public.<\/p>\n

Those of you who have been reading me for a while know that I am thinking along some very similar lines. If you combine, for instance, my review of Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge<\/a> with<\/p>\n

On my last scientific paper, I was both a stunt-man and the make-up artist<\/a> with Journal Clubs – think of the future!<\/a> with The Scientific Paper: past, present and probable future<\/a>, you will see a similar thread of thinking.<\/p>\n

But, what do you think?<\/p>\n

Read the comments on this post…<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael Nielsen’s <\/a><\/em>essay is well worth reading, since it goes into some detail about the need for openness in science. It has a lot of depth and it very thought provoking.<\/p>\n

The comments are also very interesting, with an ongoing dialog between skeptics and believers. But a lot of these discussions only examine the barriers and pressures <\/em>of a very small slice of the researchers in the US.<\/em><\/p>\n

The science that is discussed in these essays really only encompasses those scientists in research universities where tenure competition is the fiercest. Take a look at some <\/em>recent statistics (2006):<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

22 million scientists\/engineers in US
\n18.9 million actually employed
\n69.4% work in the business sector
\n11.8% work for the government
\n8.2% work at 4 year institutions
\n9.7% work in the business\/industry sector for a non-profit<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This discussion seems to have focused on just a small fraction (but an important one) of the number of scientists who would benefit from these tools. These researchers are funded by grants and are in tenure-track positions at 4 year research universities.<\/p>\n

More scientists work at non-profits. What sorts of pressures are brought to bear there to prevent open collaboration? How different are these pressures from a research university? Those in business might also benefit from these approaches but have another set of barriers. Can they be surmounted?<\/p>\n

This discussion is really important but it also conflates a large number of scientists\/engineers who have different needs and pressures. There are 12 million in business who will have different needs than the 1.6 million at research universities. <\/p>\n

How do Web 2.0 approaches impact them differently? Will some be more readily accepting of these tools than others? <\/p>\n

We need to realize that scientists encompass a much larger group than those in tenure track positions at universities.
\n<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: Science<\/a>, Web 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by SqueakyMarmot Obligatory Reading of the Day: Opening up Scientific Culture [A Blog Around The Clock]: [Via ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed] Why are so many scientists reluctant to make full use of Web 2.0 applications, social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and commenting capabilities on some online journals? Michael Nielsen wrote a very thoughtful essay exploring … Continue reading What scientists are we talking about?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-web-20"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe2yp-4J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":188,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/05\/20\/social-media-sites-for-scientists\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":0},"title":"Social media sites for scientists","date":"May 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"myScience: \u201csocial software\u201d for scientists: [Via O'Really? at Duncan.Hull.name] With apologies to Jonathan Swift: \u201cGreat sites have little sites upon their back to bite \u2018em And little sites have lesser sites, and so ad infinitum\u2026\u201d So what happened was, Carole Goble asked on the myExperiment mailing list, \u201cis there a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/192\/512341455_0493eeb389_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":420,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/10\/27\/discussing-web-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":1},"title":"Discussing Web 2.0","date":"October 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by notsogoodphotography Are scientists missing the boat?;.: [Via Bench Marks] ....or has that boat already sailed? I've read many a blog posting or magazine article declaring that scientists are behind the curve, and we biologists have been slow to pick up the new online tools that are available. I've repeatedly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/04\/05\/discussing-science-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":2},"title":"Discussing Science 2.0","date":"April 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by geishaboy500 Web 2.0 for Biologists-Are any of the current tools worth using?: [Via Bench Marks] David Crotty has been leading a discussion regarding the acceptance of Science 2.0 by scientists. Or rather the non-acceptance. It is ironic to use Web 2.0 approaches to examine why scientists do not use\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/tools.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":122,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/04\/18\/a-new-page-what-is-science-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":3},"title":"A New Page - What is Science 2.0?","date":"April 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, Science 2.0 must be the next full release after Science 1.5.b13, right? Not quite. It takes its lead from applying Web 2.0 approaches to scientific research. So, what is Web 2.0? In 2005, Tim O\u2019Reilly described in detail what he meant by Web 2.0. Since then, there has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/06\/27\/life-scientists-at-friendfeed\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":4},"title":"Life scientists at Friendfeed","date":"June 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Life Sciences likes this: Friendfeed: [Via OpenWetWare] I'm going to assume that only those currently using FriendFeed will understand the self reference in the title but if you didn't that's OK. Just keep on reading, you'll get it, eventually. If you happen to be interested or work in the life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/04\/08\/old-versus-new\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":5},"title":"Old versus New","date":"April 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by cesstrelle74 Web 2.0: In defense of editors: [Via Bench Marks] Ran into a few very interesting (and very different) articles last week, which I wanted to comment on (more posts to follow). First up is a blog posting on Sciencebase that quotes chemist (and blogger) Joerg Kurt Wegner, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open Access"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}